The next patch is called Operation Endeavor and it will be live on December 19th! We’ve got some new weapons skins you’ll be able to purchase, game updates including another nerf to Grapple [just kidding we’re bringing it back to two charges], and rad new Featured Modes we’ll will be adding to the rotation. Let’s get to it:

Content

Elite Weapon Warpaints

We once again have six weapons, the Double Take, Cold War, DMR, R-201, R-97, and the G2 all getting their Elite Warpaint treatment. Like before, Pick these up as a bundle for 19.99 USD or individually for 4.99 USD.

Patch Notes

Good news everybody

Grapple has been reverted back to two charges

After changing grapple to one charge, we did see a small shift in tacticals players chose. However, it still is by far the most commonly picked tactical and trying to change that status quo would require adjustments that would diminish a mechanic that we and many players love. Because the earlier change was not driven by balance concerns, we're happy to revert Grapple back to its previous state of two charges. Swing away!

G2 now drifts upwards as you shoot (console only) Minor optimizations for X1X and PS4 Pro

Community Corner

This art by KP_N7 from our forums shows their Northstar sad but ready for what’s over the horizon.

NERPachino from Deviantart reminds us that sharing is caring, especially when it comes to batteries.

Moving forward we would love to hear what you think about future FNN’s. As you know we’ve got some projects in the works we aren’t going to be talking about for a while so we want to hear your ideas for other topics and content you’d like to see from us next year.

It’s hard to believe it’s the end of the year already! Shortly we will all be taking some time off to enjoy the Holiday with our families and friends and we hope you enjoy yours! It’s been an amazing year for Titanfall, Respawn, and our community and we’re thankful for all your passion and support.

We’ll see you on the 19th when Operation Endeavor goes live! Have a great week.

Mardi 21 novembre 2017

What time is it? "Harvest Time!

Elite Weapon Warpaints

The weapons that are getting the warpaint treatment this month are the Flatline, Volt, EPGesus, Alternator, Softball, & the R-101. You may buy these individually at $4.99 USD or as a bundle at $19.99 USD but like always, the bundle will not last forever and will disappear 12/19.

Badlands Flatline

Heat Sink Volt

MRVN EPG-1

Headhunter Alternator

Masterwork R-6P Softball

Blue Fade R-101 Carbine

Jump Starter Pack

This content was originally meant for those who bought the Ultimate Edition of Titanfall 2. Since then, we heard lots of feedback that the Jump Starter Pack has been helpful for lots of players so we’ve decided to make it available to everyone to purchase if they want. You’ll be able to access it from the in game store for $6.99 USD and it includes:

Patch Notes

This month patch notes is small, very small. But, it’s a few things that you guys asked for and we agreed with. This month’s patch notes are as follows.

All advocate gifts are now purchasable with credits Upcoming featured modes: Nitro mixtape, Nitro FFA Fixed an issue where cloaked enemies on look like they have a mosaic overlay instead of being cloaked when a player is embarked in a titan.

What about some of the changes from the previous patch? What was/is the mindset behind them?

In the last patch, we had a multitude of changes from Arc Grenades, RSPN 101/201 Weapons, pilot abilities and more. The idea behind these changes was to keep the game fresh by shaking up the meta.

The most notable change was to Grapple. This has been the most used tactical ability to the point that we felt it was causing players to not give the other tacticals much of a chance. With that, we decided to remove a charge on the grapple to bring it more inline with the other tacticals. We knew this change would be risky, but we wanted to evaluate if the impact of this change could encourage a more diverse meta versus playing it safe. We are continuing to monitor this change and will provide an update on it next month.

Now onto the change for the Mozambique and Wingman Elite pistols from secondaries to primaries. We saw a decent pool of players who enjoyed using these as primary weapons and hardly touched the actual primaries. Thus why these specific weapons were chosen. But because they would become primary, they would be under powered compared to the rest, thus why the buff them and to legitimize the users who do enjoy this style of play.

We’ll be continuing to watch player data and feedback so let us know what you think.

New Community Banners!

If you’ve been following past FNN’s or our social channels you should know that we have some incredible artists in our community. Last month, our subreddit hosted a fan-art contest asking community to create callsign banners and the Top 8 chosen by Respawn would be put into Titanfall 2. The results were outstanding. We hard a hard time choosing and decided to add two extra to the bunch. Below are the 10 winning pieces that will be available as banners in the Harvest Time patch. Thank you to all that participated!

Kindagoodpainter - Laser Core Online

Kindagoodpainter - Big Papa

Tinman888 - To The Sky

MrHCow - Spicy Boy

Skinninator - All to Ashes

Bman4750 - MRVN Emotes

Xbox_JRG1980 - Trust Me

Bckscr - 8-bit

Scruffy-Stevie - Beyond the Light

Cosmik_owl - V

Community Corner

Every month, we showcase tons of fanart. But this time around we are celebrating the fans who create in other ways to celebrate Titanfall

Take this Northstar Action Figure by FallenCan via Reddit for example. It looks like it’s ready to fly.

This lovable Scorch created by jillianjiggs92 via reddit is your BT-B (Bed Time Buddy).

And then Kyle Spittle has seen some battles with their IMC pilot helmet.

And then they don’t make titans like they use to.

Mardi 31 octobre 2017

Frontier news network - Tricks and Treats

The next patch for Titanfall 2 that we’re calling Tricks and Treats is available starting 10/31! Here’s what’s coming:

New elite weapon skins

With the Tricks and Treats patch comes a new set of Elite Weapon skins including 3 Limited edition spooky skins to celebrate Halloween. The Halloween Skins and Bundle will be available for a LIMITED TIME ONLY and will be removed from the store on 11/28 so get them while you can!

Each of these skins comes with a Squad Leader Bonus which gives:

10% chance per owner Elite Weapon [up to 30%] to earn a double xp token at the end of a match. Grants 1 extra merit to you and your teammates as the end of a match. A player can only receive this bonus once per match.

Let’s take a look at the skins!

Game updates

We have new Featured Modes to introduce that will be added to the existing rotation. We’ve taken another look at Pistols and heard your feedback. Expect to see some changes for Mozambique and Wingman Elite. You will also see some adjustments made to Attrition, Frontier Defense, and Reapers.

More info to come at the end of the week!

Titanfall united

This month the Titanfall community rallied to put on a two day Titanfall 2 stream extravaganza to raise money for the Las Vegas Victims Fund and Ridge to Reefs for Puerto Rico.

Big thanks to iishii who championed and did all the heavy lifting to bring streamers and players together for an awesome weekend. We are so proud of our community and it means a lot to us to see our fans come together to help others.All told over 50 streamers participated and nearly 1000 people joined the Titanfall United Networks and together raised nearly 10K for charities. Thank you to all that participated and donated!

We’d like to recognize the streamers that took the time to support this effort:

Lastly, let’s enjoy a recap of our experimental high TTK in form Titan Toons created by our very own Moy Parra.

Vendredi 27 octobre 2017

Patch Notes - Tricks and Treats

Well it's that time again where we layout the changes the patch notes. We update you on weapons, Titans, and mode changes (including whats in the pipeline for featured modes), and some bug fixes. Enjoy!

Two will be available right away and both have prism variants you can buy for 1500 credits.

Titanfall 2 game changes

Weapons

Increased view kick and hipfire spread for R-101 and 201. Reduced recoil for Flatline Arc grenades now stick to a surface and explode after .75 seconds.This applies only to multiplayer. Arc grenades will function as they previously have in single player. Mozambique and Wingman Elite can now be equipped as Primaries. Mozambique is now automatic, has 2 more shots, and fire rate has been increased. Damage and magazine size increased for Wingman Elite. Turrets now have increased health and take more damage from Pilot weapons [2x damage from AT weapons, grenadier weapons, and Ordnance abilities. 3x damage from primaries]

Titans

Northstar

Now moves slightly faster using Hover and Cluster Missile speed has been increased.

Arc Traps now cost $650. Amped Batteries now cost $400 Join in progress players now receive money for each wave completed. Players will now have 5 seconds of invulnerability after jumping out of a dropship. Fixed bug with arc traps staying after a loss or after they get picked up and replaced.

Private Match

Aegis XP can now be earned in Private Match

Reapers

Reapers now take more damage from Pilot weapons [2x damage from AT weapons, grenadier weapons, and Ordnace abilities. 3x damage from other primaries] Increased health to 3500 from 3000. Increased projectile speed and accuracy [this makes them a little better against Titans] Reapers now dodge less frequently.

These will be introduced at a later time as part of the rotation of Featured Modes.

Tactikill Attrition: All tactical cooldowns are reset to full charge when killing an enemy Pilot. Attack on Titanfall: Everyone has 3 charges for Grapple. The Great Bamboozle: Everyone has Holopilot.

Bug fixes

Fixed bug with Tone’s Particle Wall taking more damage when aiming at a Titan behind it. Pilot loadout menu will now properly display weapon skin name in the description area. Player callsign cards in Frontier Defense will update to the proper difficulty in the Network interface.

PC only

Fixed highlights appearing cutoff when supersampling is enabled.

Mardi 3 octobre 2017

Frontier news network

For FNN this month we are sharing a bit of what we’re planning for Titanfall 2 support for the rest of the year. We will be releasing patches in October, November, December and they will be focused on quality of life, bug fixes [like that pesky Tone Particle Wall bug], and balance changes.

We will also be releasing new weapon skins through the end of the year for purchase. Our desire is to have an Elite skin for most of the primary weapons. The art team has come up with some awesome stuff including Holiday themed skins.

The Featured Mode spot has been a great way for us to experiment and also add some fun wrinkles to existing modes. We’ll continue to rotate Featured Modes and have some stuff we want to try this year that we’ll be talking about next month.

Lastly, it was awesome to get some community-made callsigns into Titanfall 2 last month like Nicole Peh’s outstanding Titan Restaurant Series. We’d love to add more so in the near future we’ll be giving you folks the opportunity to submit your art and we’ll be choosing our favorites to add to the game. Keep an eye on our Reddit and Forums for updates.

We’ll be revealing more details on what to expect in the patches and talking more about some of the things we want to try to shake up the meta of Titanfall 2.

Community corner

Our community never ceases to amaze us. This month is no exception.

Take example of this piece submitted by Rubbleubbles over on reddit. One of the best pieces of Tone art we’ve seen.

Basklin (@basklin3 on twitter) created this wonderfully colored art after being commissioned by a fellow player.

Shhh! You smell that? Oh it’s just Cajunbelle11 over on reddit burning a Ronin into wood.

Lastly we’ll leave you with this Montage, once again, by Aspenox.

If you want a chance to be featured here in our FNN, make sure join our community over on the Titanfall subreddit and any of our other social channels.

Lundi 28 août 2017

Postcards from the Frontier - The Patch Notes

New content [Free]

Onyx 'Good Boy' Banner TitanToons banners [8 total]

Map

UMA [Live Fire]

Tight corridors guide combat into three arenas flanked by balconies, doorways, and windows. A large central divider provides cover for short range effectiveness, with a long flank that opens opportunities for confident marksmen.

New Frontier Defense Maps

Exoplanet, Drydock, Angel City

New Execution

Hole in the Wall [Amped Wall]

Get five kills while Amped Wall is active to unlock.

Community Creation Banners

Titan Restaurants by Nicole Peh [6 total]

New featured modes

Aegis Titan Brawl

Standard Titan Brawl but with your Aegis Titans.

Aegis Last Titan Standing

Standard Last Titan Standing but with your Aegis Titans.

New content [Purchasable]

8 New elite weapon warpaints - Each comes with a squad leader bonus

10% chance per owned Elite skin (up to 30%) to earn a Double XP token at the end of a match. Grants one extra merit to you and your teammates at the end of a match. A player can only receive this bonus once per match. $4.99 each or $24.99 for the bundle of 8 (bundle limited time only until 9/26).

Game improvements

The purchasable Frontier Defense shoulder plate can now be applied to Prime Titans and all skins, and can be toggled on or off in the loadout menu. You can now edit Pilot loadouts from the Titan selection menu in Last Titan Standing Chat box added to Titan selection screen in LTS and FD. Single Player: BT’s loadout menu doesn’t delay when selecting loadout button [thanks Bryonato for reporting!] Added option for “Friendly” to Hold to Rodeo control - works on friendly Titans. Frontier Defense has been added to Private Match settings.

Frontier defense improvements

Applying an Amped Battery to a doomed Titan now provides a full shield when used to bring a Titan out of Doomed State. Reaper and Titan weak spots are now hidden when cloaked by Cloak Drones. Difficulty is now shown during Titan selection screen. We've made a change to matchmaking in Frontier Defense. Moving forward if you quit out of a full public match in progress, you will be given a penalty where you will have to wait 5 minutes before being able to matchmake again.

Balance changes

Combined the Split Shot upgrades into one upgrade. Added a new Laser Shot upgrade that increases weak point damage.

Monarch [Frontier Defense balance]

XO-16: Critical Hit now increases weak point damage by 50% from 25%.

Tone [Frontier Defense balance]

Signal Strength Upgrade now increases the duration of Sonar Pulse by 100% from 60%.

Misc bug fixes

Fixed bug where a Monarch with Superior Chassis would have more Health than displayed. Fixed a bug where a Titan that was undoomed with an Amped Battery would have less Health than displayed. Fixed issue where Classic Frontier Defense music option was missing for consoles.

Frontier Defense

Fixed bug where player would get stuck on Titan selection screen if they joined a game late and got killed while transitioning from Titan screen to game. Adjusted Stalkers pathing to reduce cases where they would go to unreachable areas of the map.

New content [Free]

Requirement to unlock: Get 10 Pilot executions while cloaked [this is not counted retroactively].

New regen callsign banners for Gen 10-100 including prism versions.

New content [Purchasable]

Prime Titan: Ronin Prime Titan: Tone Camos

20 new camos

Callsigns and Patches

20 Callsigns and 20 Patches [including Nessie and Spicy Boy patches!]

Nose Art

5 new Nose Arts and 1 new Warpaint

Matchmaking and Network improvements

You can now invite friends to Network in-game. Added “confirm” dialogue when inviting a friend to Network. Will no longer show the “invite friends to network” button if it’s not allowed for active Network or if the Network is invite only and the player is not an admin.

Game improvements

Update to Crashsite map.

Fixed around 100 instances of getting bumped, bonked, stuck or tripped up. During the clean-up, we also wanted to experiment with more mobility options. To that end we’ve added 8 ziplines to get around the map faster and a few more wallrunning locations.

Titan balance

General

Titan Meter and Core Meter are now gained when damaging shielded Titans. Slightly reduced Core Meter generation from damage to compensate. Titan executions are no longer blocked by shields.

Fixed issue with melee attacks not hitting near corners. Improved hit accuracy when there is a height difference between players.

Game mode adjustments

Prevent phase shift players from earning meter by phase dropping the flag and then picking it back up. Private match will no longer display win/loss messages as those are not tracked in Private Matches. You can now skip the kill replay in Live Fire and Last Titan Standing matches.

Misc bug fixes

Players dying inside their Titan will no longer award a “Pilot Assist”. Pilots no longer considered idle and be kicked while rodeoing. Fixed issue with Pilots getting stuck after grappling out of a rodeo near a ceiling. Fixed issue with store where bundles would still show as purchasable after you already bought them. Fixed issue with open invites not showing the correct icon for joined members. Fixed several rare crash bugs.

New content

New Map: Glitch New Live Fire Map: Deck New Faction: M.R.V.N. New Execution: Get to the Point [Pulse Blade]: Unlocks after getting 10 Pilot kills with the Pulse Blade. If you have already achieved the 10 kills it will unlock retroactively

New Featured Modes [we’ll be introducing these at different times in the near future]

Glitch 24/7

Get a feel for the new map by playing a variety of modes on just the Glitch map

Marked for Death

6v6. One member of each team is Marked as targets and both teams must defend their target while trying to kill the other team’s target. Once one of the marked players are killed, the surviving Mark’s team is rewarded a point. After a few seconds, new Marks are chosen. First team to 10 kills wins.

Titan Brawl

Think of this as Team Deathmatch with just Titans. 5v5 mode with Titans only [no ejecting] and respawning. Each kill counts for 1 point and first team to 30 points wins.

Iron Last Titan Standing

It's the Last Titan Standing you know and love with a few new rules. 5v5 with no ejecting and no batteries.

New features

Main Menu Update: We dressed things up a bit with new background videos, updates, and tiles with rad stuff we think you should check out Increase Pilot Gen to 100 Added Live Fire mode to Private Match options You can now choose between regular, Prime, or random for executions for Titans if you own the Prime Titan

Matchmaking and network improvements

Game will now emit a sound when it is going to connect you to a match. Our PC brethren will want to make sure to set Settings > Audio > Sound In Background to On to hear game sounds when the game is not focused. This is for all audio, including the matchmade sound Fixes to address parties occasionally getting split up Players that join late to a party making it too large for the current playlist will now cancel matchmaking Fixed issue where you could not invite friends after starting a private match

Game improvements

The game will now remember Multiplayer as last played in Main Menu - no more accidentally selecting Single Player! Removed sun flare for maps Colony, Exoplanet, Forwardbase Kodai Gates, the 6/4 Faction Leader, now uses the campaign model

Titan balance

General

Titan Melee - Reduced area of effect for all Titans except Ronin

Ronin

Fixed a bug with Sword Block not always blocking the intended amount of incoming damage

Ion

Small reduction in Laser Shot’s cone angle

Pilot balance

Arc Grenades

Arc Grenades now have only 1 charge Arc Grenades recharge faster

Holopilot

Holopilots can now walk through the Amped Wall Holopilots can now crouch walk

Mastiff

Made crosshair smaller so if you have a bead on an enemy you’ll more likely to deal high damage Projectile width will increase quicker to improve consistency of damage in close quarters

EVA

Now need to be closer to deal max damage Slightly Increased spread to compensate

Devotion

Reduced the near and very far damage of the Amped Devotion

Charge Rifle

Small increase to its base damage

Archer

Reduced missile tracking speed. It will still continue to track targets, but not to the extreme amount it has been since the last patch

Crosshairs

Crosshair dots no longer turn off when firing all assault rifles and SMGs Fixed issue with the R101 where the reticle would disappear while cloaked

Game mode adjustments

CTF

Added a 1st Half/2nd Half indicators to HUD for CTF Fixed issue in CTF where the flag was unreturnable after being dropped by an enemy Fixed a bug in CTF where the flag could be returned by dead players Dropped flags will now drop more reliably in areas with low ceiling clearance

LTS

Hooked up the missing LTS VO line letting you know you’re the Last Titan Standing Fixed an issue where players would see a black screen while waiting for players to connect. It now says “jumping to location” like other modes Updated the player status HUD elements

Misc bug fixes

Fixed issue with tracking rockets missing the dropship Fix for Scorch Nitro nose art: Scorch and Scorch Prime now have different nose art for the “Firebrand” Scorch Prime will keep the same “Demons” nose art Scorch now uses a slightly modified pre-order version of “Firebrand” that will also contain the “Demon” art Fixed issue where the Blacksite Scorch Warpaint would not appear in first person Fixed issue where Legion would spin and face opposite direction when performing his execution as an Auto Titan Fixed a bug where ejecting during Legion’s Power Shot could leave you unable to melee Fixes to 3rd person animation for some Titans Fixed bug where a Pilot could not execute an enemy if their movement speed was reduced Fixed a bug where a Pilot rodeoing a Titan wouldn’t see it’s health bar as Doomed

PC specific fixes

[PC] Fixed crash issue when switching from Crossfire to SLI [PC] Fixed bug where top 3 player callsigns would overlap the chat box at the end of the match

6v6 Live Fire maps only First team to 5 caps wins No boosts No Titans Phase Shift Drops the Flag

This is the first of us experimenting with doing some twists on existing game modes. This will not be replacing standard CTF.

We would love to hear feedback! Have fun and let us know what you think.

Lundi 10 avril 2017

Server Patch

Just a little guy that we're pushing out today with some fixes

Coliseum

Pilot model will now match the tactical Fixed bug where Ticks would persist after the match ended and kill enemy during the victory pose.

And...

Fixed bug where dead players could still return the flag in Capture the Flag. Fixed issue of players and holopilots getting stuck on geometry. Balance change for Forward Base Kodai where we changed center battery location based on feedback.

Hello, my name is Kristen Altamirano and I am a Senior Environment Artist on the Titanfall art team. I personally have been a huge fan of the series and the Respawn crew since Day 1! ‘Colony’ is my second favorite classic map and I am so grateful for the opportunity to work on the Remastered version. It has been an honor working directly with the original developers that brought us so many fun maps in Titanfall 1 where we could tromp around in giant robots and enjoy shooting stuff for the first time in these fields.

For starters what does it mean to remaster a map?

When first given this task we had several major things to think about, but one of my personal goals was to pay tribute to the talented people who worked on it before me. We have a lot of respect for our fellow teammates here at Respawn and this map had a lot of nostalgia. I wanted to make sure changes I made were going to improve the look of the map so that we were happy with it, but that it stayed true to the original.

How could we make this level look cooler by matching our new standards and stay within tech limitations?

Titanfall 2 pushes to have good performance so it can keep that smooth flow of gameplay and high framerate. We try to be as efficient as possible when building our levels (by using tileable textures, similar or duplicated assets in different positions called instances, creating modular sets, making visual blockers so you don’t have to render the entire level all the time, to name a few). We used these same methods when creating maps in Titanfall 1, however our materials and lighting tech have evolved since and became more complex for Titanfall 2. Those tech improvements impacted our original levels from the first game making them a lot heavier to run. One would expect for them to run faster than Titanfall 2 maps but this is not the case and as a result we needed to be very careful and make smart decisions about any additions to the existing classic level.

PBR time!

You may hear this term used an awful lot when people talk about how games look nowadays, but what is it to have or use PBR? My coworkers tell me that it is not only the drink of choice for budget college students, but it’s also short for Physically Based Rendering (much more exciting!). This explanation can get way too technical too fast and there are plenty of sites online for you to check out if you want to know the extended answer. But I like to think of it in simpler terms–it’s an advanced rendering system that allows games to show off more accurate surface detail and material break-up on objects. For instance, things like metals can actually look shinier or matte like different real metals you’d expect to see in the world. In games, they don’t have to all look and shine the same as if there is only one type of metal. Wet concrete floors won’t look like that same shiny metal texture you just saw either because they have their own set of calculations in their materials to look more accurately like concrete.

The original ‘Colony’ map didn’t have the PBR rendering system, so now that we added this tech for Titanfall 2, us artists had to upgrade the old textures and bring them up to our new standard. My coworker for this map was Senior Environment Artist Austin Arnett. Austin was also one of the original artists on ‘Colony’ for Titanfall 1, so it was neat getting to work with someone familiar with the layout. He and I were able to take the older textures and mix them in Quixel Suite to get the new proper gloss and specular textures we needed. We were then able to add our own artistic tweaks and fit them into our PBR materials so all the assets in the level could have some extra attention and shine. Several of the artists on our team contributed to the PBR phase on ‘Colony’ since some of the textures were shared on other levels.

Time constraints are really important!

Wish there was more time in the day, or unlimited budget and time to do everything right? Well, most of us know that’s not usually the case.

We were given about a month and a half to remaster the level and had to prioritize which tasks were the most important to tackle first. In this timeframe we factored in changing the lighting, the PBR texture process mentioned above, play-testing the level (yes, we love making games we want to play!), and fixing bugs that show up, etc. At each point we had to evaluate our production schedule and see if we had enough time to complete everything, which leads me to our next point…

Reworking it–Sometimes you have to ask yourself is it worth it?

The ‘Colony’ roof textures on the buildings are a good example of this scenario. Some of the older roof textures were a bit too low-res or blurry for us to keep. At this point we could either replace the old one with a different texture that looked better if it existed or remake the texture from scratch which can be time consuming.

Our main designer for ‘Colony’ was Multiplayer Geo Lead Geoffrey Smith. He had also worked on the original version and returned to help with the Remaster. Geoff had always really liked small European towns which served as early inspiration for making this map. When our Pilots were given the ability to double jump in Titanfall 1, he envisioned them jumping across lots of rooftops and having firefights. It reminded him of one of his favorite animes called ‘Ninja Scroll’.

I think the rooftop gameplay is what helps make this map fun! And it’s where you spend most of your time. The art team felt it was very important for this area to get a lot of our attention so we could stay true to our designer’s vision. I remade a bunch of the rooftop textures but stuck close to the formula that was already there, while Austin added groups of neat solar panels, and skylight windows to make things more interesting and differentiate some of the surfaces.

Austin took care of making new variations to the ground terrain and we both touched up textures and meshes for the interiors and exterior structures throughout the level.

Geoff also wanted to experiment with new lighting in the ‘Colony’ Remaster. The original version had been lit darker to match the Campaign in Titanfall 1.

Here’s an early concept painting

Titanfall 1 ‘Colony’

Geoff felt that darker lighting in MP maps stressed your eyes a bit too much when looking for enemies so for the Remaster he wanted to try out a brighter lighting set-up and his hope was that players could see Pilots easier.

Austin was in charge of doing the final lighting for the level along with the help of our Lead Environment Artist Robert Taube, and Environment Art Director Todd Sue.

Fun Additions

You may notice the addition of the ‘Big Rig Repairs’ yellow neon signage added to the big garage building on the edge of the map. A lot of us who play the game felt that ‘Colony’ could use some better art landmarking so when we played with our teams we could call out locations to our friendlies and they’d know where we were. Since the garage building was the location for Hardpoint C in Amped Hardpoint, and the Flag location in Capture the Flag mode we felt that it was a good place to update the original signage and make it a more unique structure to call out.

So after some discussion with Todd Sue, Austin, another one of our Senior Artists named Brad Allen, and I–we came up with an idea. ‘Big Rig’ just happens to be the nickname for one of our FX artists, so we decided to use the name for the garage and make it a neon sign. It stuck! Brad provided a really cool concept painting for the sign and logo, and I was able to whip it up in 3D. After adding the meshes to the building it wasn’t enough, so I added in some yellow paint accents and color stripes to push the design of the walls and it was done.

Clean up your mess!

The last part of the Remaster phase… When making changes to a level you can create bugs or introduce new problems unintentionally. Texture seams, objects clipping into each other, collision problems are just some examples. Austin, Geoff, Multiplayer Designer Alex Roycewicz and I all played clean up crew while playtesting the game with our amazing Quality Assurance team and the rest of the Respawners. We tried to fix as many things as we possibly could with the time left.

The ‘Colony’ Remaster was a huge combined team effort from many Respawners in multiple departments. Some special shout outs to the original crew who worked directly on ‘Colony’ and helped make this remaster job easier by answering my questions (whether it was looking for their textures or digging through their old files)–Todd Sue, Lewis Walden, Mike Altamirano, Tu Bui, and Austin Arnett, for art environments. Our designer Geoffrey Smith made Colony so fun to play. Robert ‘Robot’ Gaines and Ryan ‘Big Rig’ Ehrenberg made the scene come alive with their FX magic. They all contributed and developed the style of the town, the dress settings, and made the map welcoming to work on.

We really hope you guys enjoy the new update and have fun with the new Titanfall 2 mechanics in ‘Colony’! If you’re still reading at this point, thanks!! Now, see you on the Frontier!

Tacticals

Holo Pilot now has the name and a health bar of the owner pilot Holo Pilot pulses randomly on the minimap Holo Pilot will give a subtle audio cue now to the owner when it’s destroyed

Amped Wall

Amped Wall can now be destroyed

Titan changes

Reduced the amount of core meter generated by dealing damage to Titans Removed the icon on top of a battery that would appear after a Pilot stole a battery via Rodeo

Scorch

Increased the base duration of Thermal Shield Reduced the increased duration of Inferno Shield kit so it’s total duration stays the same Fuel for the Fire Kit now reduces the cooldown of Fire Wall instead of increasing its duration Fixed a bug where Fire Wall and Flame Core were still being extinguished by Electric Smoke

Game modes

Attrition

Enemy npcs appear on the minimap in Attrition - for Titanfall 1 veterans, all pilots have Minion Detector.

LTS

Balanced the locations of batteries that were heavily favoring one team and adjusted other battery positions relative to those being balanced. Restricted Live Fire and LTS max draw rounds to 3

Live Fire

Adjusted Live Fire scoring priority so Kills now count higher than Flag Captures You will now instantly steal the flag when executing an enemy flag carrier in Live Fire Live Fire mode will now wait until all players have connected before starting the first round

New features / Changes

Featured Mode Colony 24/7 Mix of Modes Added Random Pilot Execution option. This will choose a random execution out of the ones you have unlocked. Advocate Gifts will now default to rewarding random cosmetic items instead of credits. This should help players who primarily play one type of loadout get more cosmetic rewards

Fixes

Gameplay Fixes

Fixed bug in Angel City where embarking into your Titan in certain spots would lead to player death Various fixes to improve overall movement Various improvements to Pilot melee Amped Wall fixes Silence Pistols are now properly amped Arc Grenades can now be thrown through the passable side of the Amped Wall. Fixed issue with Inner Pieces so executed Pilot is facing the same way as the execution Fixed some issues with weapon drops during executions Fixed the sidearm dropping from the stim execution Fixed 180 degree bug with executions. Fixed bug where you couldn’t move after Northstar’s execution Fixed Titans warping to the floor when disembarking in mid-air Fixed bug in Coliseum where holding down ordnance button between rounds would cause player to spawn on same side as their enemy Fixed a bug that could cause rodeoing pilots to not be hit by Electric Smoke. Various Faction Leader announcement fixes when executing rodeo Various improvements to Titan nose art issues Adjusted disembark to better handle disembarking onto a raised platform

Fixed bug where you would still get an option to buy after purchasing Angel City’s Most Wanted Bundle Various stability improvements

Mardi 28 mars 2017

Behind the Scenes - The Beacon

With the launch of our free trial weekend we thought this would be a good opportunity to talk a bit about the making of the mission you’ll get to play.

The chapter we want to show you is called “The Beacon”.

This was the first level we designed for Titanfall 2 single player. Actually, this level was designed when we didn’t even have a single player.

Titanfall 1 was a multiplayer only game. Bringing those mechanics, weapons, Titans and environments to single player showed tons of promise, but also left us swimming in a sea of possible ideas. Paralyzed by choice! We had to start somewhere.

First, we set a few ground rules.

The single player game is about a Pilot and his Titan. The game takes place in “postcard locations”.

A Pilot and his Titan.

This seems obvious in hindsight, but early in development we weren’t sure what the relationship was between a Pilot and his Titan other than there was a natural duality to the two roles that seemed sensible to explore. We had to figure out the details that would best express such a relationship in a single-player context.

In Titanfall 1, a Titan was used like a tool, you blew them up, and then called in another. They were disposable and replaceable. That disposable dichotomy didn’t seem appropriate to what we wanted from a single player experience – Emotion! Conflict! Heroics! We decided that the Pilot had his (or her!) own Titan, and that Titan was going to be a character.

This helped us decide a few design principles.

The Pilot and Titan should work together to solve problems they couldn’t solve alone. This should involve size, ability and will (or, for a Titan, its protocols).

To do this, the Pilot and Titan will need to learn to trust each other.

The game takes place in “postcard locations”.

Fundamentally, this means we wanted the player to go places that invoke a sense of adventure. You should want to go there and spend time there.

Sure, you’re doing missions that will ultimately decide the fate of the Frontier, but that doesn’t mean some of those missions can’t be in exotic, beautiful locations.

“The Beacon” was designed to feel freeing. Open, begging you to explore it. Climb all over. We wanted to prove that this is an adventure game at heart.

So, what was the gameplay?

We went back to our design principles:

The Pilot and Titan should work together to solve problems they couldn’t solve alone.

What problems can a Pilot solve that a Titan can’t?

In what ways would I need a Titan to progress?

These questions were asked and answered over and over again in the form of Action Blocks.

Action Blocks are small, discreet prototypes, built in one week by 1 or 2 designers. There are no restrictions or guidelines on creativity, other than the game is about a Pilot and his Titan.

This step was incredibly important for us. It laid a foundation that Titanfall gameplay supported many different gameplay concepts. It broke down preconceived notions about what a mission could do and still feel like it belonged in the universe. In Titanfall 1 we were wallrunning, shooting guns and stomping around in our giant robots. Now in Titanfall 2, after Action Blocks, we were using cranes to create new wallrunning paths, using our Titan to throw ourselves across massive gaps (Fastball Maneuver), surfing the air flow in a massive fan… and stomping around in our giant robots.

Crane Action Block

With all these new possibilities, our next question was: What does a Titanfall 2 single player level play like?

The Beacon aimed to find the right balance between the types of core gameplay we identified from Action Blocks:Pilot Combat, Titan Combat, Pilot Mobility Challenges and Puzzles.

Wall Run Obstacle Action Block

Not all missions in the final game needed to fit in a strict formula (in fact, we consider that one of the game’s strengths), but to know when we were breaking the rules we first needed to define the rules. The Beacon tested each core gameplay type in different areas of the mission.

Pilot Combat found its cadence in the Reaper fight among the towers in the clouds.

Titan Combat (and a Boss fight!) take place in the open fields of electric fog.

The Beacon Substation tested how intense and challenging we could push Pilot Mobility and Puzzles.

We also explored ways in which a Pilot and Titan have to work together to solve problems they couldn’t solve alone. Examples included environmental hazards that only a Titan could cross, being thrown by your Titan to inaccessible places (Fastball Maneuver) and adventuring to locations underground where a Titan could never fit.

We also explored ways that the Pilot and Titan could learn to trust each other.

One approach to building a relationship was to let the player chat with their Buddy Titan (BT).

This came about impulsively (as many features do!) when BT delivered a question to the player in early versions of the script. It was meant rhetorically, but our impulse was to reply. We said, “Yes BT!” out loud. That’s when we knew that the bond between Pilot and Titan has to work both ways. Interactive Dialogue resonated with us, and immediately we started to care for BT.

These lessons learned in “The Beacon” were used throughout the game as touchstones when designing other missions.

Ultimately, this is the reason we chose “The Beacon” to showcase Titanfall 2 single player in our demo. You’ll get a little taste of everything. While other missions in the game bent (or even broke!) the guidelines in fresh, exciting ways, “The Beacon” is a great example of what Titanfall 2 single player is as a whole. We hope you love it.

We are not confirming release date for Live Fire as we have not completed the certification process for the update yet. When we are 100% confident of date we will make official announcement. In the meantime you can check out full patch notes of what to expect in the update.

New content

Live Fire: A new Pilot vs Pilot elimination game mode! It’s a 6v6 round-based with no respawns, you will have one minute to eliminate the opposing team in order to win the round. You can also win the round if your team is holding the neutral flag when the round timer ends. The team to win 5 rounds first wins the match. New Live Fire Map - Meadow, a lush location with grassy lanes and rocky outcroppings that provide site lines for long engagements and sneaky routes for flanking. Also zip lines are back! New Live Fire Map - Stacks, an industrial location of open areas that sandwich a dense center point framed by towering structures. The verticality encourages attacks from above and rushes from the outside lanes. New Faction Leader animations! Faction Leaders now play a randomly selected animation during the beginning dropship animation. New Audio for the DLC Commander Intros. Added a new execution, "Late Hit". Deliver a flurry of Stim fueled punches that pummel your enemy to the ground .

New features

New Sounds for the Stim Pilot Execution, “Late Hit”. Added Film Grain Slider New ambient environmental sound effects to bring the livefire maps to life. Meadow is a fusion of virtual reality and natural forest ambiences while Stacks is a fusion of virtual and industrial sounds.

Mixtape Matchmaking

A complete overhaul of our multiplayer matchmaking. This new feature will allow you to create your own “mixtape” of modes to your heart’s desire.

New section of the FAQ to highlight upcoming patches, DLC drops, trailers, and creations from the community

Game improvements

Holo pilot decoy can now deploy on ziplines. Holo pilot decoy is more resilient when stepping over things and colliding with walls at certain angles. Holo pilot decoy is now visible in the threat scope and sonar grenade pings. Holo pilot decoy no longer runs on top of dome shields. Holo pilot decoy no longer crashes into the ceiling and dies when running through doorways. Holo pilot decoy should be more resilient when started during wallruns. Kraber can no longer be shot as a semi-automatic if the player presses the reload button at the same time as the fire button. Titans that are invulnerable while performing executions will have their lifebars colored gold and flashing to communicate their invulnerability. Added some out of bounds triggers and props to block off areas for Crashsite and Complex. FOV is now saved per-user. When switching weapons while editing a loadout, the game will now preserve your mod choices if possible. Ronin now shows his sword in the loadout menus. Credit purchasable items now show a credit symbol instead of a lock symbol. Friends' names will now show up green in chatroom and in-game. Prime Titans can now use Nose Arts. Network Admins can send messages to the network in-game, rather than only through titanfall.com Added extra text to make clear that Warpaints are not supported on Prime Titans. Capped max range of Reapers' weapons in Attrition. Toned down the excessively loud dropship sounds in Attrition. Adjusted Volume Falloff of Cluster Rocket Explosions so you don't hear them from across the map anymore. Added some lobby text notifications to inform players that they are waiting on the party leader before restarting matchmaking. Nuclear Eject damage no longer fills your Titan Meter. Reduced the area affected by the Nuclear Eject screen shake. Increasing crit damage Pilots deal to Reapers in Multiplayer.

Removed the damage falloff from Flight Core rockets. This should make her more consistent in dealing high damage. Increased dash regen rate.

Ronin

Increased dash regen rate.

Scorch

ADS'ing with his primary weapon will display the projectile's path.

Ion

Fixed a bug with Vortex Shield where reflected bullets would deal a high amount of splash damage.

Weapon balance

Devotion

Added very far damage settings, reducing its damage at distance. Added more kick to the first shot to make using single shots more difficult. Increased view kick during sustained fire to create a slightly larger spread.

Archer

Fixed the homing speed so it will once again track targets as expected.

MGL

Reduced the projectile speed. Increased the fuse time.

Misc bug fixes

Fixed being able to be shot by snipers behind the cover of the amped wall if the shooter is really close. Fixed sentries so they now properly track targets through the amped wall. Fixed tracers not showing up when shooting through friendlies with bullet weapons. Fixed the MP R201 not dismembering stalkers and ultimately being less effective as other similar weapons against stalkers. Fixed bug with using A-Wall/Hard Cover while phase shifted. Fixed some cases where players could plant turrets in mid-air. Fixed HUD display incorrectly showing number of Electric Smoke charges. Fixed case of scoreboard counting a Titan termination on a piloted Titan counting as 2 pilot kills. Fixed MOTD not displaying over a certain character limit. Fixed Charge Rifle with Quick Charge mod skipping cooldown after firing and switching weapons. An elusive Nessie has still not been found…last seen in the mission Blood and Rust… Fixed bug with getting doomed with Stealth Auto Eject while in the midst of melee. Also fixed rare case of being stuck permanently in a "Ejecting Titan" cockpit animation. Fixed some cases of being stuck inside of level geometry with Rodeo. Fixed Grenade indicators not showing up sometimes. Fixed incorrect bullet hit detection immediately after being damaged. Fixed some cases of being stuck inside of level geometry with Phase Rewind. Fix asian languages not always word wrapping correctly. Fix input duplication between chat messages and the game. Fix pick up ammo sound incorrectly playing in MP. Fixed issue with browse not highlighting a network when clicked from lobby. Fixed hover FX not playing in NPC kill replay. Fixed Ion's Laser Core FX appearing offset from crosshair. Fixed showing the turret placement hint when player spawns, but doesn't have a turret, due to watching a kill replay with the turret placement hints. Fix camera becoming disoriented when navigating the store. Fix formatting issues in stats page. UI bugfixes when browsing networks and in the chatroom. Fixed a bug with the nose art menu that left the player on a blank page sometimes. Fixed a bug with SP achievements not correctly counting all Pilot Helmets collected. (Will trigger when opening main menu) Fixed some stats related issues with player melee.

Platform specific fixes

PS4

Accepting a game invite while the game is not running will now properly connect you to the invited lobby. General stability improvements.

PS4 Pro

Increased sun shadow resolution.

X1

Stability improvements when browsing the store. Fix not being allowed to start multiplayer after resuming the game from suspend when the player's profile is not linked to an Origin account. Fixed being able to accept invites to a game that the player is already participating in. General stability improvements. Correctly grab the system voice permissions from Xbox and honor it in game.

PC

Added Adaptive Supersampling. When enabled and running faster than the FPS target, the game will dynamically increase rendering resolution up to 2x the target resolution to improve AA quality. If the maximum supersampled resolution exceeds 16K in either dimension (e.g. when running at Eyefinity/Surround resolutions), this option will be unavailable. Added Very High to the Model Quality tiers. General stability improvements. Added Model Draw Distance to allow pushing draw distances further out. Added description for Triple Buffered in the VSync description text. In an effort to reduce hitches from texture streaming, the "Texture Quality" setting has been renamed to "Texture Streaming Budget" to more accurately reflect the setting's function, and the tiers have been renamed to indicate the VRAM amount needed. A warning has also been added when the game detects that the chosen tier uses more memory than currently detected. The goal is to only use about ~75-80% of the VRAM when the game is running to avoid GPU memory management hitches. Spun D3D texture creates off onto a dedicated thread to avoid driver stalls and added throttling to the number of textures that are made live by the streaming system every frame. The throttling mechanism is simplistic and can be improved, but we want to get this out earlier to see if we're on the right track in reducing texture streaming stutter before investing more engineering effort. If you were previously experiencing stutter, please provide feedback on whether stuttering has noticeably improved after this patch. Adaptive Resolution FPS Target is no longer capped by max monitor refresh rate and instead caps to maximum supported FPS (144). Improve VRAM detection accuracy. Improved SLI/Crossfire compatibility. Players are recommended to not use TSAA when running in multi-GPU mode because TSAA can negatively affect performance scaling. Improved frame rate stutter detection tools. Enabling adaptive resolution while VSync is set to Double Buffered should now reliably force VSync to Triple Buffered. The game now prevents the screensaver/lock screen from coming up due to idling while the game is running. Added additional info to rare startup error "Failed to CreateGameWindow. Resolution Unsupported?" and a speculative fix for it. Fixed adaptive res FPS target incorrectly resetting to 60. Fixed texture streaming being disabled on GPUs with < 2GB of detected VRAM. Fixed the game crashing on startup if a user has AMD GPU drivers installed, but is no longer using an AMD GPU as the primary adapter. Fixed memory leak experienced on Crossfire setups. Fixed various UI scaling issues when running in Eyefinity/Surround ultrawide resolution. Added text clarifying "Invite friends" functionality doesn't work while the Origin overlay is disabled.

Titanfall 2 has a unique and colorful cast of Titans that all have their own skills and personalities. The team explored many inspirations to build each one and you will get to choose from six in multiplayer and get to know one very special Titan in single player named BT-7274.

BT-7274 is unlike any Titan seen before in the Titanfall universe. He is the first Titan built by the Militia; a resistance group fighting the oppressive IMC to provide freedom and safety to the Frontier. Designated as Vanguard class, he is capable of using any Titan loadout that he comes across and can adapt and learn in new situations.

You can get some insight into all the work that went into the visual and design process not only for BT-7274 and Titans in Titanfall 2, but also the origin story of Titans straight from Art Director Joel Emslie below. Enjoy!

Titanfall 2 will be available for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC on October 28th 2016.